Top 50 Artem Lobov Quotes

I was absolutely honored to be invited to the Kremlin. It has been a dream of mine ever since I was a kid.

More and more Russians started watching the UFC when Conor came along. The more they watched, the more they understood it.

This two fights a year thing, that’s not for me.

I always seek the biggest challenge and MMA is the biggest challenge.

Your record is where you’ve been, but it’s not necessarily where you are or where you’re going. That just shows that I’ve had a tough road.

Whether it’s in the UFC or elsewhere, you need to be winning in this sport.

Once you’re inside that Octagon, it’s one-on-one. Your skill versus his skill. Your heart versus his heart.

I feel I have the necessary skills to compete with the best, I wouldn’t have even aimed for the UFC if I didn’t think I did.

To me, KSW is a huge promotion and it’s on my list of one of the things I want to do as an MMA fighter. I think that goes for any European fighter.

I think against Cub I get it done. He comes in, he’s very open, he throws wild shots, and he has never, I promise you, in his life felt power that I have.

I want to fight everyone. Weight makes no difference when it comes to who I want to fight.

I always show up. I always make weight.

What Aldo is good at is the leg kicks, that’s what oppened a lot of doors for him. He would land those leg kicks, and then the shot would come from there, but in terms of his hands, he doesn’t have, I mean he has power, of course he does, but nowhere near the power that I have, I promise you that.

Anywhere I was, I always seek the hardest challenge. I win some, I lose some but I always take the hardest challenge.

I was not released by the UFC.

A personality like Conor’s appeals to the Russian people a lot. He’s always ready to go, he knocks people out and he’s tough.

I certainly will explore all avenues. K-1, boxing, all of them.

I said this before, for me I will always respect the fighter that shows up.

I’m always me, I always show up to get that knockout.

UFC, this is the premier organization. This is where the toughest matchups are and this is what I’m always after.

If a fight happens between Conor and Khabib in Russia, the support would be divided between them. It would be 50-50.

I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that money was a big factor in signing for Bare Knuckle – we’re prize fighters, and our success is measured by the size of our purse.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very thankful for UFC.

Having your hands up doesn’t stop you from getting knocked out and there are a lot of advantages to having your hands down. It’s also more exciting because it looks very impressive from the fans’ perspective, which is a big factor in the entertainment business.

Conor knows how to fight and he knows how to box. He has been boxing professional boxers for his whole life, he has had almost 50 amateur boxing fights.

The Irish and Russian communities are huge in New York, so this is truly one of the only places where I can fight in front of all of my fans.

I honestly feel that Khabib is as big as he is in Russia because of Conor McGregor.

This isn’t a very manly thing to do, not showing up for a fight.

When you don’t have to worry about the financial side, you can truly concentrate on the craft. You can truly concentrate on the fights you really want to have. You have that freedom and it’s extremely important especially when you have a family and you have to provide.

Whether I like them or I don’t like them, it makes no difference for me. Whoever is standing across the cage from me, that’s who is going to go down.

I always make sure that I’m good to do business with.

I honestly really like Ryan Hall. There’s nothing bad I could say about this guy.

Being able to train nothing but boxing for a full year made me a much better boxer as I brought in professional boxers helped me make a lot of gains.

I just couldn’t turn down the money Bare Knuckle FC were throwing at me, so I ended up signing with them.

For me it’s my biggest sporting achievement being Conor McGregor’s sparring partner.

I feel Alex White is exactly the type of guy I always talk about, with an undeserved, padded record. There’s many, many of them in the UFC, because this is the easy way in.

If people are watching your fights and they care about what you do then that is success to me. As far as I’m concerned, I am one of the most successful fighters in the world.

In Russia, the people have been brought up tough. It used to be the Soviet Union. The thing everybody thinks of when they think about Russia is how tough the people are.

Many MMA fighters have tried boxing before, even just sparring for a few rounds, but no boxer has done MMA rounds. There’s just no way for them to do that.

Boxers are absolute novices in the clinch.

If no one is watching, it doesn’t matter what else you are achieving, you are not successful.

If you look at Mayweather’s fights he often likes to get into the clinch, but what is a boxer in a clinch against a wrestler, an MMA fighter?

I’m a learner and I’m a go-getter.

I always had an interest in MMA but I didn’t start training until I was 21.

It’s called the Ultimate Fighting Championship and people pay to come and see the fights.

Growing up in the Soviet Union, ballroom dancing wasn’t the coolest thing to do. But that probably made me tougher, because it wasn’t an easy task to do ballroom dancing and not get bullied. And I never got bullied in my life, even though I changed to five secondary schools in three different countries.

I can take a punch.

My attitude is that I just never give up. I’ve been choked out twice and had my arm broken in a fight but I’ve never tapped.

I know there’s not a man in the world in any of the striking arts that would just run over me.

I bring in the hardest sparring partners you can imagine and I’m going through the guys.